


Finale: Permanence

by angel_deux



Series: Won't You Let Us Wander [13]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, BEFORE he actually proposed to jyn, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, I hope no one's disappointed there's zero angst in this, Minor Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus, also if you're looking for a smooth and romantic proposal from Cassian Andor this is not for you, and cassian should not have told him about his plan to propose to jyn, bodhi is a terrible liar, brief reference to Kes/Shara and Hera/Kanan, especially not before such a big celebration, it's just pure fluff and (hopefully) comedy, proposal, the continued misadventures of Rogue One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-27 03:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10800573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_deux/pseuds/angel_deux
Summary: Cassian thought that telling Bodhi he was planning on proposing to Jyn would give him the pressure he needed to get it over with. Unfortunately, things got a little dicey on their mission, and he never got to ask. Now they're at the Rogue Squadron dedication ceremony, and Cassian has to figure out a way to ask her before she figures out why everyone keeps congratulating her.





	Finale: Permanence

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is! The actual final part of Won't You Let Us Wander, holy shit. I rewrote this so many times, because I was really worried about ending this series on a high note. Hopefully this isn't disappointing! And if it is, just...pretend it isn't?? for me??

It takes Jyn a little while to accept it, but something _really_ strange is going on. It’s been going on since she and the rest of Rogue One landed on Hoth for this party, but it’s gotten worse now that they’re all in one room. The first few people who baffle her with non-sequiturs and vague allusions to something she doesn’t quite understand, she writes off as just being overly enthusiastic about the dedication ceremony. A Rebellion squadron being named after Rogue One? Jyn’s excited too!

But after the third person grips her hand tight and earnestly gushes, “congratulations! I’m so happy for you!” she starts to get annoyed by it.

“It’s not like it was just me,” she points out to Wedge, who tried to give her a _hug_ over this before he realized that that probably wasn’t in his best interests.

“Right, no, of course. I’m gonna go swing by and get him, too,” Wedge says absently, already waving to Luke at the entrance to this meeting room (currently being used as a slightly chilly party room), and then he moves off, leaving Jyn frowning after him.

There’s more like that. People clapping her on the shoulder, kissing her on the cheek, giving her hugs (which she mostly manages to avoid, but it’s tough to avoid a hug from Chewbacca when he’s heading your way, both because he’s enormous and because you really don’t _want_ to avoid it). People here have _never_ treated her so much like one of their own, and so Jyn is left in this state of both loving and _loathing_ this extra emphasis, this kindness and care that is being shown to her. At least she’s not someone to regard with suspicion anymore. At least she’s someone to be smiled at, congratulated, praised. Even if most of the words they use are a little confusing.

For example: why do people keep holding her by the arms and looking down at her stomach, as if expecting to see something different there?

And why is her entire team huddled in the corner, whispering to each other, leaving her out in the center of the room alone to deal with the well-wishing and the diplomacy? Don’t they know she’s the _worst_ at diplomacy?

* * *

The thing is: Cassian fucked up.

_Cassian_ thought that it would be easier to rip the bandage off if there was pressure. That’s how he’s always worked best. Give him a deadline to shoot for, and he’ll meet it. And so when he and Jyn left for the brief two-person smuggling mission that they were undertaking for the Rebellion, he told Bodhi: _I’m going to do it there. On Coruscant. I’m going to ask her_.

Except Coruscant had gone sideways, and he and Jyn had had to kill their traitorous informant, and then they had been held captive and questioned by Imperial loyalists for a few hours, and he had broken two fingers trying to hoist Jyn through the window to get them out, and so he hadn’t really been in the mood to ask her anything except ‘can you please help me set my fingers, because I think you crushed them with your boot heel’.

He told Bodhi before he left that it was a secret. That it was for Bodhi _only._ But he should have known better.

“How’d it go? She said yes, I’m assuming,” Han says dryly as he passes. “Or…wait, no. Are condolences in order?” His laughter follows him into the crowd, loud and guffawing and incredibly grating. Bodhi goes ever redder by Cassian’s side.

“How many?” Cassian asks through gritted teeth.

“Um. Me personally? Or the inevitable spreading of the news that followed? Because the first one is kind of a high number, but the second is, um, pretty much everyone?”

“Bodhi.”

“To be fair, I…no, you’re right. This is terrible. I’m so sorry. But you told me you were definitely going to do it this time!”

And, well. That’s a good point. Cassian _did_ say that he was definitely going to do it this time, because that was the plan. It was also the plan after the Kophan forces officially declared victory. It was also the plan that time they went to Tattooine for a job and she killed fourteen Stormtroopers with a pistol and a half-broken truncheon to get him out of a tough situation. It was also the plan when he made sure their visit to Naboo coincided with a particularly beautiful meteor shower.

It’s been the plan almost twenty times in the six months since the nearly fatal mission on Aeron, when he decided it was time to think about asking, but he’s still carrying around the small piece of metal in his pocket, and he’s still got the forms saved on his datapad, hidden beneath ten different layers of folders named for mission logs so she won’t stumble across them by accident.

When he’d told Bodhi about that part, Bodhi had been skeptical.

“You want to present her with _forms_? Not very romantic, is it?” he’d asked, but Cassian scoffed.

“I filled out all of it so she wouldn’t have to, and I know I did it exactly as she would like. Trust me. For Jyn? That will be more romantic than anything.”

And it would be! If he ever managed to figure out how to bring it up.

“Someone’s going to say something,” Bodhi whines quietly. “You have to do it now.”

“Now? In the middle of all this? She would hate me for it.”

“She’s going to love whatever you do, captain,” Chirrut says, eliciting disbelieving scoffs from both Cassian and Bodhi. “Well, not _anything_. Try to serenade her and she will leave you, I think. But she’ll be satisfied with anything else. Any show of permanence, any show of an intention of lasting connection, will mean more to her than whatever romantic gesture you are imagining.”

“I know that,” Cassian hisses. “And I don’t remember asking any of you for your opinions on my methods.”

“No, you didn’t. Which might be why you are taking forever to go about this for no reason,” Baze says pointedly, three steps behind Chirrut, holding a plate of food, actual prepared _food_ , because apparently this is one of those few times when the Rebellion has decided to celebrate in style. It’s flattering, but also a little mystifying. Naming and dedicating an entire squad after Rogue One is a big deal, but this kind of festivity seems a little...  

“Oh no,” he says, half whisper, half groan, his voice weak and slightly trembling. “Leia doesn’t…and Mon Mothma?” Bodhi’s expression falls even farther. “Oh, _Bodhi_.”

“You _know_ I can’t lie to her! She asked me what was going on with you, and…”

“Leia was the first person you told, wasn’t she?”

“She _asked_!”

Cassian curses, the words in Festian because he doesn’t want to hurt Bodhi’s feelings _too_ badly, despite being angrier with the pilot than he’s ever been.

“You know she can’t resist telling _everyone_ about everything!” he growls, once the angriest of his words have been released in a language that almost no one in the galaxy speaks anymore.

“It’s too late, you know,” Baze says. He takes an utterly unconcerned bite of a miniscule pastry, shrugging. “It’s done. And now you must swallow your fear and take the leap.”

Baze is right, of course. If Cassian doesn’t do something in the next few minutes, it’s going to be done _for_ him. If one of the rebels offering Jyn congratulations doesn’t get more specific with their reasons, then either Leia or Mon Mothma – whichever of them has been chosen to preside over the dedication ceremony – will surely be more than ready to step in with a carefully crafted speech about love being found even in the darkest of times. It makes Cassian sick just thinking about it. Is it too late to go back to being full-time pirates?

“Maybe,” K-2SO says over Cassian’s shoulder, thoughtful, as if he’s thought of something extremely profound to say (which Cassian already _knows_ isn’t true), “Jyn will grow bored of speaking to people and retreat to your quarters. Of course, the Rebellion would probably prefer for her to be here for the ceremony, but I doubt they expect much from her.”

“Great, thank you, K. Wonderful analysis,” Chirrut laughs.

“He’s right, though. She’s reaching her limit already, look.”

Bodhi nudges Cassian’s shoulder so he looks at Jyn. She’s currently in the grip of a female pilot, a strong hug that Jyn seems mortified by. She catches his eye over the woman’s shoulder and gives him an incredulous look, indicating her helpless position with her arms, pinned by her elbows by the other woman’s tight grip.

“I’m fucked,” Cassian decides. “I’m…this is not fixable.”

“Oh, thank kriff,” Bodhi says, nearly pointing. General Draven is making his way up to Jyn, holding a datapad, businesslike as ever. Cassian doesn’t think anyone has ever been so grateful as he is now to see the tense, awkward marriage of respect and loathing that Jyn and Draven have managed to cultivate in the past few months. Draven, at least, won’t say anything that will give it away. And he’ll take so long to deliver whatever point he’s trying to make about the ceremony, or the squadron, or _whatever_ he wants from her that it will give Cassian time to figure something out.

* * *

Jyn still doesn’t usually _like_ Draven, but she’s ready to call him her closest fucking friend when he clears his throat awkwardly, effectively dismissing the woman who has decided that Jyn needs to hear a maudlin diatribe about the woman’s recently failed marriage.

“Thank you,” she says, shaking out her arms, which have the pins and needles sensation of having been cut off from circulation. “I didn’t realize this would be such an emotional affair.”

“Leadership thought it best to celebrate all of our successes at once,” Draven grumbles. “I think they were looking for an excuse to have a party.”

Jyn’s not sure what the other successes being celebrated are, since all anyone wants to do is congratulate her like Scarif was a one-woman mission, but she’s hardly going to admit that to the general.

“At least there’s alcohol,” she says, and he makes a noise of agreement, slightly amused.

“Unfortunately a few of us need to stay clearheaded.”

“Well, I won’t be one of them.”

“You’ve earned it.”

_That’s_ a surprise, and Jyn almost laughs outright.

“You’re not going to be one of those people acting as if Scarif was all _my_ mission, are you? Because I’ve had enough of people pretending those men weren’t there for Cassian just as much as they were there for me.”

“No, don’t worry. I know Captain Andor’s contribution for what it was. I could downplay your involvement entirely, if you’d prefer. Though you’ve earned the praise.”

“Two compliments? Are you _sure_ you haven’t been drinking?”

“You should really stop being surprised when that happens. You’re doing good work. I was…pleased. When Skywalker suggested the name. Rogue Squadron. It’s a good fit.”

“Surprised you wouldn’t have a problem naming a squadron after a team that committed treason. Twice? I’m not sure what you lot consider _treason_ , exactly.”

“Kazadu wasn’t treason. It was a sanctioned mission,” Draven drawls, not rising to the bait, further convincing Jyn that he’s secretly drunk as shit. “The stolen ship was a bit of a mess, but of course it turns out I’d already signed it away to Captain Andor, so that was hardly _your_ fault. And Scarif, of course, was, in hindsight, considered an official operation that Mon Mothma approved in defiance of the council. A bit messy for her, but technically not illegal, given the rules about priority missions and those sorts of things. Funny how you lot keep running in-hindsight sanctioned missions, but you get results, so I won’t get too hung up on it.”

“Are you looking for an apology? Or a promise we won’t do it again?”

“Neither. I just wanted to, um. Congratulate you personally, I suppose. I was pleased to hear… Captain Andor is still important to me, and I…well. I suppose you don’t need me to say all this.”

“Not really,” Jyn says with a strangled laugh, though she’s pleased at least to be speaking to someone who is interested in giving Cassian _some_ credit.

“There are some forms you’ll need to sign off on. It isn’t normally my job, but I thought I ought to be the one to do the honors, considering.”

Jyn doesn’t quite follow that part (does the Rebellion need _permission_ to use the name Rogue Squadron? That seems a little ridiculous, and they should be asking _Bodhi_ , not her!), but she’s too busy sending Cassian ‘help me’ eyes to really take it all in.

“Right, of course,” she says absently. Cassian is avoiding her gaze. He’s trying to make it look like an accident, but she knows him too well for that, and she’s gotten too curious to ignore it now. “Excuse me for a moment, sir. I’ll sign the forms a bit later, if that’s all right?”

Draven seems a bit put out by that (but when _doesn’t_ he?) but gives her a nod, stowing the datapad under his arm. Jyn grabs another drink on her way back to her crew, but finds that Cassian has managed to disappear by the time she reaches the rest of them.

“Where did he go?” she asks Bodhi, who stares at her, mouth hanging slightly open.

“I….don’t know,” he says. But he looks right over her shoulder as he says it, and she just has to follow his line of sight and…yep, there’s Cassian, shoulders hunched as he talks to Mon Mothma. The older woman is laughing, actually _laughing_ , one hand over her face, and she shakes her head. Says something that doesn’t carry, but which Jyn thinks is “Leia’s job, I’m afraid.”

“Jyn!” says the princess in question from behind her. She shouts Jyn’s name loudly, drawing the attention of Cassian from across the room.

His eyes meet Jyn’s, an expression of horror spreading across his face. And Jyn is really, _really_ confused about all of this, isn’t totally sure what’s wrong, but she turns to face Leia, trusting Cassian to handle whatever it is.

* * *

The problem, of course, is that Cassian doesn’t know _how_ to handle it. Leia’s eyes are glimmering with emotion, with unshed tears, and Leia isn’t the sort of person to let this go with a simple ‘congratulations’.

No, Leia is the kind of person who’s going to say, “when I first met you, when I first saw you with Cassian, I just _knew_ that we would be standing here one day”, something grand and then probably a little horrifyingly bawdy. The princess has _no_ tact when it comes to her friends, and she will likely say the words ‘marriage’, ‘engagement’, or, worse, ‘children’ within the first minute of conversation.

“I need to go,” Cassian says to Mon Mothma, who is _still_ laughing at him (and of course he explained the whole problem to her for _nothing_ , since she isn’t even going to be the one leading the dedication ceremony). He moves through the crowd quickly, ignoring the jumble of well-wishes and wolf-whistles that follow him. Ignoring Luke’s attempt at a hug. Ducking, literally, out of the way of an attempted grab by Chewie and the sloppy kiss that Kes Dameron tries to plant on him. Hera. Shara. Hinara. Wedge. The list goes on.

It probably only takes him fifteen seconds to actually cross the room, and Jyn only looks _mildly_ confused instead of _very_ confused and also murderous, which will certainly be her reaction if he doesn’t do something, fast. He grabs her by the elbow, pulling her away from Leia’s embrace.

“I need to borrow you,” he says. It comes out more frantic than he intended, and has Jyn sending a look of panic his way, but he turns his back and pulls her insistently out of the room.

(He doesn’t see Leia give a knowing nod towards Baze and K-2SO, nor the excited and grateful hug that Bodhi smothers her in, which is probably for the best.)

* * *

Except, when Cassian has dragged Jyn down the hall and into an empty room – a fucking storage room, of all places – the familiar choking sensation starts. It’s what has happened every time he has started to ask her about this. It’s a painful, piercing kind of feeling, like he can’t breathe. Like he’s looking at her for the first time again, or like those painful first few months after Scarif when he was torn between wanting her closer and wanting her to be far, far away from him so that she would remain mostly untouched by what he thought he was.

“Cassian, what’s _wrong_?” she asks him, worried, and it’s the worry that does it, that makes him heave a sigh, makes him swallow his doubt: she’s worried. She’s worried, and it’s going to be a disaster no matter _what_ he says now, and he needs to do whatever he can to fix it.

It happens so quickly. _Too_ quickly.

“I wanted to ask you to marry me,” he says.

He stumbles over the words, somehow says ‘marry’ wrong so then he has to repeat it, and he can feel his face going red, feels mortified, understands immediately that he’s done everything incorrectly. The self-loathing is instantaneous; nothing quite so serious as his usual brand of it, but still bitter enough that he finds himself fantasizing about what Jyn’s life would be like now if he had just stayed at the bottom of the data tower on Scarif.

No, wait. Jyn probably would have been dead if he hadn’t been there to save her from Krennic. The tank on Kazadu then. Or the Afflictor. Either one.

“Uh, okay?” she says, after a long moment in which he considers resurrecting an old alias just to disappear forever. “Why didn’t you, then?”

“Fuck, I didn’t even ask _then_ , did I?” He groans, putting his face in his hands. “ _Fuck_. I was going to ask you on Coruscant, but…it went off, and I just…I’ve had trouble coming up with the right time.”

“And so this? Right now? Is the right time?”

He doesn’t know why he thought she would mind. Why he thought she would be angry or, infinitely worse, devastated that she had committed herself to someone who doesn’t know the first thing about romance.

No, that’s not Jyn. Jyn is grinning, her expression one of fond disbelief. A familiar enough look. He sees it from her all the time. Still. It’s such a relief now, to hear the lack of concern. To see the smile spreading over her face.

“It’s _not_ the right time,” he says, moving back over to her, ceasing his restless pacing, shoving his hands into his pockets, mostly to make sure that the delicate metal structure is still there, where it has been for a while now. “It isn’t. It’s probably the worst time.”

“No, the _worst_ time would have been out there, in front of everyone,” Jyn says, and he grins a little, helpless.

“That’s what I told Bodhi.”

“So Bodhi knew? Before _me_?”

“That’s the problem.”

It takes a moment, but not a very long one. A look of understanding crosses her face, and she laughs. Loudly. And, okay, for maybe a little longer than he’s comfortable with. He’s red again by the time she finally stops, though at least she felt the need to grab his arm for support as she doubled over, and at least she’s still standing close to him, not storming out and telling him he’s hopeless.

“I’m sorry!” she says, still half-chuckling. “It’s just, oh kriff, a lot of those interactions are making so much more sense now. I was so confused _._ I thought they were all talking about the dedication ceremony! Luke asked me if I had decided on a date, and I said, ‘um, isn’t it today?’ No wonder he looked so fucking flabbergasted.”

Cassian puts his head in his hands and groans again, a little more dramatically this time, and Jyn dissolves into giggles once more, tugging him closer. He rests his forehead against her shoulder, mostly so he won’t have to look at her. Sure, he’s bent over awkwardly, having to stoop down to her level, but at least she can’t see the embarrassed flush he doesn’t think he’ll ever get rid of.

“I knew if I didn’t…if I didn’t ask you, someone would say it too explicitly for you to misunderstand, and then you’d…I don’t know, be angry?”

“Well why did you tell Bodhi, then? Of all people, Cassian! You were a spy for _how_ many years? And you give your top secret intel to a man who’s the worst liar I’ve ever met?”

“I thought…fuck, I thought it would be the pressure I’d need to get over it and just _ask_ you. But I froze up again at the wrong time, and then all that shit happened and we were sort of running for our lives.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and he pulls back, finally looks at her again. She’s got her eyes narrowed thoughtfully in his direction, and her smile is less mirthful, now. More gentle. As much as he loves to hear her laugh, even when his foolishness is the cause, he likes this a little better.

She leans up to fix his hair, idly, where he mussed it up against her jacket. When she’s finished, she rests her fingertips against his chest, and her voice is innocent when she asks, “what, you don’t think being held by Imperial sympathizers under the threat of torture is a good time to declare your intentions towards me?”

“It probably could have been romantic, given the right framing of the situation, but I was focused on getting us out of there.”

“Wasted effort,” she points out, a little smugly. “Since _I_ was the one who got us out.”

“Yes, well. Maybe _you_ should have asked.”

“Almost did.”

He registers her words slowly, his eyebrows climbing once he realizes. She’s watching him with a wry grin on her face, and it spreads once she sees his realization.

“When?” he manages to ask

“Kophan Freedom Night. I thought there was never going to be a better time than that, except maybe when we kill the Emperor.”

“What, just the two of us? Standing over his corpse? That _would_ be a good time.” He lets the joke hang there for a moment before admitting, “I almost did it that night, too.”

“Wouldn’t that have been something? The two of us turning to each other at the same time.”

“Except we both were too afraid.”

Jyn, obviously offended by that, says, “who said I was afraid?”

“What? What stopped you, if it wasn’t fear?”

“I wasn’t sure if that was even something you wanted. You hadn’t…you hadn’t said anything to me, before. And I thought…shit, maybe it _was_ fear.”

“ _See?_ It isn’t easy.”

“I guess not.”

“I still haven’t asked you, have I?”

“No. Do you think you need to?”

“I don’t know. Would you say yes if I did?”

She laughs hard at that, grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket and meeting him halfway, pulling him down as much as she’s pulling herself up.

“Is that really a question?” she wonders, after she has kissed him.

“Of course it is! You might have no interest. You’ve never mentioned it to me before. Maybe you’re not interested in marriage.”

“I figured _you’d_ be the one with a problem being officially tied down.”

“Was stealing a ship for you not enough proof?”

She laughs again, her voice getting even gentler when she says, “you’re misremembering. I stole _your_ ship.”

“Oh, that’s right. But you allowed me to remain captain.”

“I wasn’t a very good pirate.”

“You were a wonderful pirate. And we’ve been…it’s been…shit. I really am awful at this.”

“You’re doing all right. Just say it.”

He takes a deep breath, considers his words.

“I just… I thought it might be nice. I know that doesn’t sound like very much. But so often we do things only because we have to. Or because it is the right thing to do. Or because our mission demands it. But we’ve proven to ourselves, I think, that we don’t _need_ an official status, or a ceremony, or anything to prove to each other that this is…that this is _it_. Promises of forever, and all that, I suppose they’re a bit overrated.”

“This is _so_ romantic,” Jyn says, her faux seriousness lasting until the final syllable, at which she has to stifle an outright laugh. But he’s laughing too, pushing her lightly away so she stops trying to kiss him.

“No, listen. I’m going somewhere with this.”

“ _Are_ you? No wonder you never got around to this. When do we ever get the time?”

“Stop it. I’m just saying, we don’t _need_ to do this. But I thought it might be nice to do something that we _choose_ to do. Just because we want to. Just because it’s for _us_.”

This time, Jyn doesn’t laugh at him. She’s still smiling. Still flushed from her earlier bouts of laughter. Still looking delighted and affectionate and mystified by his ability to still be awkward and flustered by her, all this time later.

“Okay,” she says, leaning up to kiss him. “Now that actually _is_ pretty romantic.”

“I told you I’d get there.”

“Something just for us.”

“Exactly.”

Jyn shifts her weight, digs into one of her pockets, pulls out something from within it.

“I’ve been carrying this around for a few weeks,” she admits, unfurling it. It’s a necklace, he realizes. A necklace like her own, except the crystal is smaller, thinner, is a delicate cylindrical shape roughly half the width of his pinkie finger. He opens his hand, and she drops the necklace into it, suddenly unable to look at him.

“Is this…?” he asks.

“I found a jeweler when we were in Theed.” She pulls her own necklace out from under her shirt, and she holds it up for him to see. The formerly lopsided crystal has been smoothed out, rounded, the extra weight on one side removed. He looks down at the crystal in his hand disbelievingly.

“It’s from that?” he asks. An inane question, but she nods, gives him a helpless little grin.

“I wanted to give you something. Some part of me. I’d already sort of decided against asking you about marriage. I think you’re right I was afraid. Told myself I was just being practical: you wouldn’t want to make anything official. A liability for a spy, probably, even if you’re not really a spy anymore. But I thought something like this…I’ve never had anything before, is the problem. Nothing I could give you that was a _part_ of me, except for this. It’s all I have of my life before. It’s the only thing I’ve ever managed to keep for more than a few months at a time, aside from you.” Her gaze is burning him, her eyes bright and shining, and he can’t look away. Can’t stop running his thumb over the smooth surface of the necklace in his hand, learning the weight of it. “I thought of just giving you the whole thing, but it’s basically half Bodhi’s now, so that didn’t seem fair. I don’t know. Is it stupid?”

“What? Of _course_ it isn’t…Jyn, it’s perfect! Oddly complementary to my fucking thing, actually.”

Muttering, now, as he realizes, and Jyn smiles wider at him. Relief, he thinks. Considering how wound up he’s been about asking her and how _not_ opposed to this whole thing she seems so far, he understands the feeling.

“What’s your fucking thing?” she asks. Cassian makes her wait, though, until he unclasps the chain and secures the kyber fragment around his neck. It’s not as heavy as hers, doesn’t have the same weight. It’s curved, delicate. It’s exactly what he would want. Subtle and comforting. Something he can hold on to when he’s worried for her, when he misses her. “Seriously, now I’m curious. What is it?”

“Impatient,” he says, chidingly, closing his fingers around the object in his pocket, trying to calm his nerves.

“You knew that about me already, and you still want to marry me,” she points out. That does it, that relieves him enough that he can draw it out, and he puts it in her hand.

She gazes down at it, raises it higher to look at it, her lips lightly parted in surprise.

“Before you get too impressed, I didn’t make it,” he says, and she laughs, looking over at him, waiting for the explanation that she knows will follow. “My mother did.”

Jyn’s face falls, and she looks down at the delicately sculpted flower again, starting to shake her head.

“No, no, Cassian, I can’t take this. I can’t…”

“You cut off a piece of your necklace for me,” he points out. “And I want you to have it. I don’t…I don’t remember them much, but I know that where they were born, the marriage ritual was tattoos. Small pictures over the heart. You know, something special to both of them. But we can’t do that, obviously. The kind of work we do. What if we have to pretend not to know each other, and someone happens to see it? I did some research on Coruscant rituals, but…I wasn’t sure how much that would mean to you. It wasn’t like you lived there long, and they were all so _Imperial_ , anyway. And there are so many worlds. So many species. Some of them seemed interesting. Buying you a plot of land on some planet seemed a bit extravagant, and matching rings seemed equally likely to get us in trouble if we were captured. Some were…um. Fertility focused? And that seemed unnecessary. Others were downright dangerous. You should have seen some of the Rodian ones. People _die_ during them!”

“You gave this a lot of thought,” Jyn says gently. Her hands are still cupped in front of her, protecting the sculpture.

“Of course I did. I give everything a lot of thought.”

“That’s true. I should have considered that you overthink _everything._ ”

But she’s fond, and soft, and looking at him like she’s still waiting for more, so he launches into the story.

“I don’t have much from Fest. But I went back, once, with K. Several years before I met you. Our settlement had been abandoned, everything left alone and frozen over. Most of the stuff had been looted, or destroyed in the attack that I only barely remember, but there was still so much that was familiar to me. A seat cushion that my grandmother made, destroyed and torn apart. The odd shape of our table because my uncle was terrible at carving but my mother was too kind not to accept his gift. The door to the back of the house that used to glitch out and freeze halfway open. And this.” He cups his hands around hers, both of them looking down at it. “There were no flowers on Fest. And we were too poor to _buy_ them. A luxury, that would have been. And there was a war, and my father was a very serious man, anyway, but he loved flowers. I don’t think I’d ever seen one before, but my mother used to say that when they lived somewhere warmer, he planted a beautiful garden.” He looks at her to try and figure out her reaction, and finds her staring at him, enraptured. He thinks it’s a good thing. He hopes it’s a good thing. He lowers his gaze again. “Anyway, the one thing Fest had lots of was scrap. People were abandoning their towns all the time. Too cold, too miserable. Everyone was too poor. If they could barter transport _anywhere_ else, they would. So my family would go hunting for scrap metal to make repairs. I was too young to do that, but I remember my mother collected small bits for months before she was able to make this. It was a particular kind of metal that she needed. As thin and shiny as it came. It would have not been worth very much, so maybe that’s why she did it. That’s probably why it was still on the mantle when I went back.”

“Did he love it?” Jyn asks. “Your father?”

Cassian’s hands tighten around her own, one corner of his mouth lifting up helplessly.

“He never got to see it. He died before she could give it to him. And she died not long after that.”

“Oh, _Cassian_.”

“I didn’t want it to be a sad story,” he says, a bit embarrassed. “I just thought…she would be glad to know that it…that it made _someone_ happy in the way it was meant to.”

Jyn looks at him sometimes, in the intense way she’s looking at him now, and he can’t read her at all. Can’t figure out even remotely what she’s thinking. But she takes pity on him now, laces the intensity with a soft, emotional smile.

“You still didn’t ask,” she points out, her voice so, so very soft. He ducks his head, tries to contain his own mounting joy. This was supposed to be simple. Pragmatic, even. It didn’t turn out to feel that way.

“Will you? Marry me?”

“Yes, Cassian. Of _course_ I will. And you?”

“If asking wasn’t enough of an answer: yes, obviously.”

It’s maybe about as sloppy as a proposal can be. Cassian remembers far, far more romantic ones. Shara down on her knees, holding a ring up to a gobsmacked Kes. Kanan loudly proclaiming his love in the hanger on Yavin. Even She’bara, a month ago now, giving a heartfelt speech the night before the final battle for Kophan independence, her helmet askew on her head, her eyes filled with tears, Aja sobbing out words of encouragement and love.

More romantic, maybe, but Cassian feels the thudding of his heart against his ribcage when he kisses her, and she grips him so tightly that it almost hurts. When he kisses her, he tastes the sand and smoke of Scarif, and he tastes all the time and the struggles between.  

“Suppose we should get back out there,” Jyn whispers, pulling back from his lips only far enough to look searchingly up at him. “Since it’s our party and all. On a couple of different levels. And I _just_ got what Draven was saying about celebrating all our successes at once.”

“Draven tried to talk to you about it? Really? I thought he would be safe.”

“He wanted me to sign some forms. I sort of blew him off. Guess I’d better do that. Official Rebellion or not, it might be nice to have the forms filled out. Make it official _somewhere_.”

“That’s what I thought, but I actually filled out the forms already.”

Jyn seems interested to hear that, and she gives him an appreciative look.

“Where’s the datapad?”

“Rogue One. I could go get it, if you’d like.”

“No. We can file it later. Just…the important parts.”

“Well, no name change requests. Both of us will keep ours as they are.”

“Good.”

“I requested an override on the mission rules regarding married couples.”

“Even better.”

“There’s also an option to have a Rebellion-funded ceremony. You know how they like morale. I said we didn’t want it.”

“Amazing.”

“And I officially made you second in command of Rogue One, per the Rebellion’s terms. So if anything happens to me, or I have to step down for whatever reason, they will recognize you as being automatically in charge.”

“You’re perfect, you know that?” Jyn asks, and Cassian _believes_ her. He hasn’t had doubts about her in a long time, but still. It overwhelms him sometimes how easily she has managed to heal the parts of himself that he thought would be broken for the rest of his life.

“I know this isn’t a very encouraging start,” he says, and she allows a small chuckle. “But I will do everything I can to be a good husband to you, Jyn.”

The smile she gives him is soft, warm, and she holds her palm against his cheek.

“And I will do everything to be a good wife,” she replies.

“If anyone asks, can we pretend that this wasn’t a disaster?” he asks.

* * *

“It happened on Coruscant,” Jyn says, her voice a hushed, dramatic sigh. Cassian’s cheek might _actually_ start bleeding if he doesn’t stop biting it to keep from smiling. “There we were, surrounded by Imperial loyalists. Facing down certain death _yet again_ …”

“How is she _this_ good at lying?” Bodhi asks, his voice blatantly awed, respectful.

“A lot of practice pretending to respect Draven?” Leia guesses, sidling up. “That’s how _I_ got good at it. Well, not Draven specifically. Politicians. Her story is better than you dragging her off to a storage closet in a panic.” Cassian’s eyes narrow in her direction, realizing suddenly that she had accosted Jyn on purpose, and Leia grins. “What? I’m a good liar, too.”

“The story isn’t better,” Baze scoffs. Everyone turns towards him, waiting, but as usual he seems confused as to what else they expect him to say. With a long-suffering sigh, he waves his hand in Jyn’s direction as she very sarcastically nods her head to agree with a dreamy gasp from one of the pilots listening. “It’s banthashit.”

“It’s _romantic_ ,” Leia points out. Baze grunts with disagreement.

“Baze’s idea of romance is a bit more…” Chirrut pauses, considers, tilting his head to one side with a mischievous grin as if he can _see_ the way Baze’s eyes narrow in his direction, daring him to say something unflattering. “…subtle?”

“ _Subtle_ , great,” Leia laughs. “Well, you paint the picture of domestic bliss, as always.”

“We are a perfect example of a healthy relationship,” Chirrut says, feigning offense.

“Hm, if _that’s_ true, that might explain why I haven’t had much luck with those,” says Han, throwing back a drink as he spots a good place to thrust himself into the conversation. He makes it even worse by winking at Leia. She, turning very red, decides she needs to be on the other side of the room, but not before calling him a cliché and a moof milker.

“I have a list compiled of thirty-six reasons why you have not experienced a successful relationship,” K-2SO says, his head turning to Han with some of his practiced disdain. “Would you like to hear them?”

“Absolutely.” Han is, apparently, just drunk enough to put up with this.

“You know she’s just fucking with them, right?” Bodhi asks Cassian quietly. Kes asks Jyn a quiet question, his arm around Shara, and Jyn answers with a completely out of character laugh. “You know, I didn’t say it earlier. Um, mostly because I was too busy apologizing? But I really am happy that you decided to do this.”

Bodhi’s voice is quiet enough to go unnoticed under Han and K-2SO going back and forth, but it’s so sincere that it almost hurts to hear, and Cassian smiles at his friend to reassure him.

“Thank you. For being very terrible at keeping secrets. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“You’d have gotten there eventually.”

“Maybe,” Cassian says, but he shrugs, doubtful. Bodhi considers that with a private grin. He’s pleased to have helped, Cassian thinks, and though there’s still some lingering anger, it’s hard to be _too_ annoyed with Bodhi. Both because it’s _Bodhi_ and because it all worked out, in the end. “She’s not a romantic sort of person,” he points out. “She doesn’t like big displays. She doesn’t like to feel like she’s the center of attention. We blend in, stick to the shadows. I think my problem was that I was trying to find a time that would be romantic but not so romantic that she’d roll her eyes and leave the conversation before I could get all the words out.”

Chirrut makes a noise of irritation, says, “for what it’s worth, she wouldn’t have done that. Not anywhere you asked her. Like I said before: any show of permanence, and she would have been delighted. But this is better, anyway.”

“You weren’t there. _Trust_ me, I made a mess of it.”

“No, this was perfect,” Chirrut says, and he pats Cassian on the arm, comfort and warmth laced through his smile, accepting no arguments to the contrary. As always, Cassian wants to believe him. As always, it’s a bit difficult to. “Jyn doesn’t like to be reminded of Scarif, you know. Of that time in our lives, except that it brought us together. She lost so much of what little she still had when she met you. But she gained far more than she had ever possessed. You. Us. Rogue One. To remind her of your love, to _commit_ to your love in this way, as we are finally receiving the recognition we deserve for our singularly heroic deeds on Scarif, long underappreciated by this…”

“Enough,” Baze warns him, leaning briefly into Chirrut’s side, elbow nudging him, before turning back to the continued bickering between the robot and the smuggler.

“You didn’t say any of that stuff about Scarif to her, did you?” Bodhi asks, his voice pitched low. “That’s a little…much.”

“No, thank the Force,” Cassian snorts in reply. Chirrut heaves a sigh so dramatic it puts Han to shame.

“Unappreciative,” he says accusingly. “You, children, are all ungrateful.”

But he’s smiling as he takes Baze by the elbow and leads him over to Mon Mothma. Apparently, from the hand signals, he’s asking about the size of the medals they’re about to receive.

“I, um.” Bodhi, still hovering by Cassian’s side, studiously looking anywhere but at Cassian’s face. “I just was wondering, and it’s okay, you know, if the answer is yes? I mean, it’s your life, and it’s her life, and that’s obviously fine. But Han was saying something earlier, and it got me thinking.”

“There’s your first mistake,” Cassian points out, but Bodhi flushes and falls quiet, and Cassian sighs. “Just ask me whatever it is, Bodhi. You don’t have to be frightened. I won’t be angry.”

“Is this going to change things? Between all of us? Han said you and Jyn are going to be ‘settling down’, and I thought, well, that doesn’t sound like you, first of all. Han was saying you were going to give up fighting and start having children and retire and then there wouldn’t be any room for, uh, Rogue One. Me.”

Bodhi is clenching his fists when he finishes, and Cassian knows that it was difficult for Bodhi to ask.

“No,” he says, as quickly as possible, not wanting to make Bodhi wait for any longer than he has to. “No, it won’t change anything. Rogue One isn’t going anywhere. Maybe _Han_ secretly wants to settle down and start having children, but we aren’t like that. One day, maybe, when the war is done, or we’re too old to fight anymore, but…Bodhi, don’t worry. We’ll be traveling together for a long time.”

“Oh. Okay. Um, good. That’s good to hear.”

“And even if we do, one day. You should know we’d want you with us. Wherever we end up. If you would like that.”

If Bodhi’s stammered, blushing, overwhelmed reply has any words in it, Cassian can’t quite make them out, but he knows from the smile that Bodhi would like that very much.

* * *

He finally gets a chance to talk to Jyn again, just before the dedication ceremony. She’s looking at the etching on the glass plaque that will be hung up in the entrance to the hanger where Rogue Squadron’s ships will be kept.

“For Rogue One,” she says, her voice clouded with something that’s not quite bitter, but which sounds slightly close to it. “Who brought us _hope_.” She arches her eyebrows at him over her shoulder as he steps up beside her. “A bit…overwrought, maybe?”

“You would think it overwrought if they just wrote ‘thanks’,” he teases, and she laughs. She still sounds surprised, sometimes, when he allows himself to joke. He’s not sure what it says about him, but she still agreed to marry him, so it can’t be all bad.

“Maybe. I’m not one for displays. And Leia’s probably going to make a _big_ one.”

She throws her drink back before reaching for his hand. He takes it gladly, and they stare up at the plaque together.

“They’re going to start the ceremony soon,” he says. It’s a warning as much as it is idle conversation. This is the part Jyn has been dreading. “Fortunately, I think I negotiated Leia down to two short sentences on our engagement.”

“You really are _the best_ ,” Jyn sighs, raising up on her toes so she can cup his jaw with one hand, bringing her lips to his cheek. He feels himself blushing. _Ridiculous_. They’ve been together for _how_ long, and sometimes he still gets flustered around her? He wonders if that will ever stop. He sort of hopes it won’t.

“I do what I can,” he demurs. But she stops him when he tries to turn away, her fingertips still touching his jawline, keeping his head turned towards her.

“I mean it,” she says. Her voice is insistent, and it trembles.

They’ve never been the type to talk about what they feel. He can count on one hand the number of times they’ve said words to describe it. And even then, it’s usually a distorted version of it, said quickly or dropped in the middle of a sentence without thinking. Something that comes out automatic, accidentally, as if they’ve said it a thousand times, even though they haven’t. He calls her _love_ , sometimes, in both Festian and Basic, and when she is particularly sleep-deprived she has been known to call him _my heart_ , but they stumble over the verbal expressions of affection that seem to come so easily to others.

“I know,” he says, and he tries to look reassuring when he smiles. “I mean it too.”

Her necklace is a gentle weight around his neck, and he can see that her free hand is curled around his mother’s sculpture, and Cassian can feel the fullness of time stretching out before them and behind them. They have come so far to get here, both together and separately, and if a year ago, five years ago, ten, he could not have imagined being here at all, then he has to wonder where he’ll be in another year, and another after that. Ten years gone, will he still feel like this? Twenty more? _Thirty_?

He doesn’t know. But despite all his years of forcing himself to be pessimistic, to be cautious, to always remember that things can go wrong, he for the first time finds himself confident. As long as she is with him, as long as his family is with him, the future feels very bright.

* * *

Leia does _not_ stick to two sentences about their engagement, and in fact regales all of them with some embarrassing stories from early in their relationship. Which then, of course, she calls on Chirrut to elaborate upon, and even K-2SO gets up to correct some inaccuracies with some dry assessments of his own.

They probably should have done the ceremony _before_ everyone got drunk, is the problem.

But the dedication is pulled off without a hitch, the medals are handed out, and Rogue Squadron salutes their predecessors with _some_ degree of ceremony – okay, so Luke fumbles with his helmet during the quietest possible moment of the salute and sends it crashing to the ground, which makes Chewbacca laugh uproariously, and then Wedge spills his drink on Hera’s dress uniform when he tries to pick up the helmet, and really the whole thing is an utter mess, but at least Draven keeps the glass plaque from being knocked over when Chirrut tries to steal Baze’s medal for himself.

The chaos intensifies as the night goes on, with Leia and Han getting into a screaming match that devolves into fervent betting from two camps: _they’re going to end it with a kiss_ versus _she’s going to punch him in the face_. Luke and Chirrut both decide that they’ll get some training in (in the middle of the party), which _also_ turns into a betting opportunity. Baze eats _all_ of the pastries that remain, and starts resorting to blatant theft from peoples’ plates. Leia doesn’t end up punching Han, but she _does_ shove him into a passing protocol droid, who careens into the drink table and shatters at least thirty glasses. Bodhi begins to drunkenly insist to anyone who’s listening that he caught Mon Mothma kissing Draven in the war room once, or maybe she was kissing that brown-haired female Blue Squadron pilot, he couldn’t really see. Chewbacca attempts to corroborate his story, except that no one except Bodhi can understand him. Wedge, in attempting to help Hera clean off her uniform _does_ end up slapped by Leia, though that’s mostly an accident. And finally, clearly seeing how the tide is turning, Mon Mothma gets Draven to help her remove the plaque from the room entirely, just moments before one of the Rogue Squadron pilots stumbles straight into the spot where it used to be propped up.

Jyn (still mostly sober) stands next to Cassian (also still fairly functional) in as dark and secluded a corner as they can find, watching everything with the identically smug smirks of the recently engaged.

“You know,” Cassian says. “I thought that my proposal was a disaster, but…”

Jyn finishes, laughing, saying, “it might just be the only thing tonight that’s gone right?”

“Not so bad, in comparison.”

“Not so bad at all, actually. I think we did all right.”

Maybe Cassian’s not as sober as all that, because he would probably never ask the question if he was.

“That story you were telling? The, um. The fake proposal on Coruscant? With the dramatic proclamation of my love…?”

“I know, right? Where do I come up with this shit? And they believed it!”

“I just…I mean, that is…you wouldn’t have preferred that, would you?”

Jyn laughs, at first, until she sees that he’s really feeling self-conscious about this, and then she laughs even harder. It’s possible Jyn is drunker than she realized, too.

“Cassian, are you _joking_? I thought of the most ridiculous, un-Cassian thing I could possibly think of. Telling me you love me in front of a room full of Imperial nobles? _No_! That would have been a horrible proposal.” But he must look still somewhat unsure, because she sighs and faces him entirely, putting her drink on the table beside her (well, technically she misses, and the drink shatters on the ground, but neither of them notice because they both are _far_ drunker than they realized). “Listen to me, because I’m just buzzed enough to say this, yeah? I want to marry _you_. Not some stupidly romantic, heroic, dashing figure out of some story. I want to marry the man who gave me one of the only remaining memories he has of his mother. The man who told our best friend about the engagement before even asking and somehow didn’t realize he’d tell fucking _everyone_. The man who had to do a panicked proposal in a storage closet!”

“Well, when you describe so wonderfully, why wouldn’t you?” Cassian says dryly, but he’s slowly smiling back. Jyn feels a thudding fondness against the inside of her chest, and she just wishes she were better at letting it out.

Then again, Cassian wants to marry her. _Her_. Not some flowery, confident woman who knows exactly what to say at all the right moments. And she wants to marry _him._ They have not often needed words in their relationship. So much can pass in just a look or a smile. And now, watching him, she finds that it’s still true. His self-conscious expression gradually fades into a smile that tells her he knows exactly who they are, exactly what she’s trying to say. _I love you_ s have never come easy to Jyn, and they still don’t. She is still a person who shows her affection easier with actions than with words. She doesn’t think that’s likely to change anytime soon.

But then again, he is the same way. And they have already brought so much out of each other that wasn’t there before. Who knows what the future will bring?

“Do you want to leave?” he asks, and she considers it. She knows he’s asking because she hates things like this. Ceremony. Attention. Being praised for something that, yes, helped the Rebellion _immensely_ , but also got a lot of good people killed. But for right now, this doesn’t feel like any of that. The Rebellion feels, for at least tonight, like a place in which she belongs.

She thinks it might say something about her that it took until _now_ , as she’s watching all of them devolve into drunken chaos, for her to feel like she’s at home, but she’s also not convinced that it says something _bad_.

“Let’s give it another few minutes,” she says. Cassian’s relieved smile tells her that he was thinking the same. Leaning over, she presses a light kiss to the corner of his mouth, reveling in the way his grin spreads over his face. “I’m sort of enjoying the company.”

“Me too,” he admits.

Jyn knows better than anyone how fragile happiness is. How quickly it can turn sour, can bleed into grief, can leave you empty. But she has come so far from the feral girl who refused to get close to anyone for fear that they would leave her, or betray her, or die.

It isn’t that she isn’t still afraid. She looks at Cassian sometimes and has to resist the urge to pull him tight against her, keep him _safe_. It’s a sudden, overwhelming impulse to fold him into herself, to lock him away, because every time she has almost lost him has hurt more than the time before, and she knows that _now_ , now that enough time has passed for him to feel essential, she knows that it’s going to be impossible.

That would have been enough to scare her away, once. But not anymore. She will be with him for as long as the galaxy sees fit to allow her.

For now, she leans against his side, and she watches the pandemonium that this staid Rebellion service has turned into, and she empties her mind of the future. All of it; good or bad. She reaches her hand into her pocket, fingers dancing over the delicately carved flower within. She allows herself to see only the present. Only Cassian beside her. Only the love inside her.

Tomorrow could bring anything. But for just right now, Jyn Erso is the happiest she has ever been.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the requisite sappy goodbye note that I feel like I need to do: 
> 
> no, but seriously, thank you so, so much to everyone who's been reading this. I tend to be pretty open in the notes about how grateful I am for this experience, but I don't think it comes close to reaching the truth. I'm normally someone who writes a lot, who churns out first drafts of novels (that i then neglect to edit for eternity, because I'm the worst), but when I started writing this, I had been going through a real dry spot. Writing was something I desperately wanted to do, but I had also started to feel like it was a pointless waste of my time (I've mentioned this many times, but...the political hellscape definitely had something to do with this feeling). One of my friends described Rogue One as "2016 the Movie", and I guess it's sort of fitting that in a year that turned out to be kind of shitty, I seized on the one thing that I felt like I could fix. 
> 
> Of course, when I started, I was thinking maybe 50k of short, sweet missions. Just glimpses into the Rogue One family, really. But I should have known better, because I've always been the kind of person to add almost half the weight of a book to a second draft. STILL! Almost 250k words is unheard of for me. I went back to look at a fic I'd written in college (a probably-cringeworthy-to-read-now Glee fic into which I slipped some zombies), which I thought was INSANELY long at the time, and it was only half that. 
> 
> What I'm saying is that I've never had a writing experience quite like this one, and part of that has been the at-times overwhelming (at times anxiety inducing) response from this fandom. I'm generally really wary around fandom, and I've always been the kind of person who consumes without much creation, but you all have been so wonderful and sweet and encouraging, and if more fandoms were like this one, I would never hesitate to join them. 
> 
> I can't say it enough. Thank you SO much for reading and commenting and making my days consistently brighter with your thoughts. I'm definitely going to miss writing this, and I'm definitely going to miss all of you!


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